UA&P students among Asia-Pacific’s top 15 in Google competition

Internet giant Google has ranked a team of students from the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) among the Asia-Pacific region’s top 15 in the annual Google Online Marketing Challenge.

School of Management alumni Rob Barretto, Cai Crisostomo, Boggs Mendoza, and Celine Lacuna were in the final year of their master’s degree program in management when they joined the Challenge. The team competed with 3,000 others around the world.

Google holds the competition for university students to experience online marketing first hand. According to the contest’s website, more than 35,000 students from 95 countries have participated in the past years.

The UA&P team crafted and implemented an online marketing campaign for Olivia & Fifth, a limited-edition clothing shop. The campaign served as their final project for their Internet Marketing course under Mr. Kahlil Corazo, an online marketing consultant.

Mr. Corazo, who served as the team’s coach, praised the competition as “a great teaching tool.”

“The students do real online marketing campaigns for real businesses,” he said, adding that students could also “see immediately the effectiveness of different strategies with web analytics tools.”

To compete in the Google Online Marketing Challenge, student teams run a three-week campaign for an SME or an NGO using the online advertising platform Google Adwords. Google gives each qualified team a $200 Adwords credit. Winners are then chosen on the basis of campaign performance and the quality of their reports.

Four other teams from UA&P also ranked high in the same Google contest. The team composed of Mayzel Lui, Bernadine Mabbagu and JR Gomez were among the global top 10%. Meanwhile, on the top 11-30% were the teams composed of Rachel Espejo, Aljohn Dy, Ayi Rapadas and Dave Villaroman; Maria Retos, Mariel Tenorio and Kim Seong-Eun; and Ace Bonita, Kevin Chan and Kevin Gatchalian.

Commenting on the state of online marketing in the Philippines, Mr. Corazo said that “in advanced economies, a large part of marketing and sales already happen online. The Philippines is also on its way to that reality. The skills of these [UA&P] students will give their companies a head start as we go through that transition.” #